The official start of the Lenten season began this past week and we have heard many of our friends and colleagues talking about what they were going to give up for the 40 days leading up to the celebration of Christ's resurrection.

The camera crews and on-air personality from Atlanta's Channel 11 were in Newton County last week for some in-your-face television journalism aimed at revealing to the world the sorry state of affairs in our local county government.

The Newton County BOC held their first meeting of 2015 last week and among its agenda items was its annual appointments. One of those appointments was that of county attorney, and the reappointment was Tommy Craig.

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This is going to be a special Thanksgiving. My great-grandson Cameron Yarbrough and I are going to begin a new family tradition this week by sharing a birthday celebration. He will hit the ripe old age of 1 tomorrow and two days later I will become slightly older than Kennesaw Mountain.

I must warn you about the crazy animals living and dying around here. This fine Sunday morning, as I was driving to church, I hit a deer. Miraculously, there was no damage to life, limb, or car. The doe lived too, but she'll be nursing a sore rump for a few weeks. Now, when I get hit on the backside, I learn my lesson on the first whack, but the deer around here aren't that bright. They keep jumping in front of my car, again and again. You'd think one of them would wise up and educate ...

Over the last few months we have had three major trials at our local courthouse; all three were held with little or none of the problems we have seen at other such trials held across the state and around the nation.

Thanksgiving is almost upon us. Most of us spend the holiday gorging ourselves on turkey, dressing and pecan pie. After we eat, we can curl up by the fireplace and nap to the sweet sounds of football and family laughter.

In a story in Sunday's Covington News, which can be read at CovNews.com, we learned that the leaders of the Newton Chamber of Commerce still were talking to community leaders in order to receive input on the new chamber director's job description.

Leadership is easy when everyone agrees with you, when money is abundant, and when the decisions you face have simple answers. Real life, however, is seldom that easy. Newton County voters elected five commissioners and me as chairman to serve as the Board of Commissioners to work together as a group to set the policy to lead this great county. My job is to follow that policy in the day-to-day administration.

In the United States the rule of law prevails. That means Nidal Malik Hasan will have his day in court. We can only hope that his trial won't become a media circus such as the O.J. Simpson trial of the 1990s.